Ruangrupa
is an Indonesian word that loosely translates as “a space for art”. Ruangrupa
is also the moniker for a lively crew of indie music-focused visual artists
based in Jakarta.

“For us
it’s a space that is quite organic, and interdisciplinary”, reveals Ade
Darmawan a member of the art-muso-fusion-enthusiasts, “like a beehive, where
people meet, distribute and share knowledge. We are not only an art space, but
also a collective. So, as a collective - we work in collaboration in producing
artistic work, like the concert we are performing on APT opening night – and as
an organisation we work with public engagement, festivals, workshops,
publishing, and research. We combine two approaches, artistic producers and an
artistic institution.”

“Even before we came together in Ruangrupa, each of us was involved in a lot of
music activities, like organising concerts and playing in bands, music has
always been there. It comes together with visuals, life styles, “he says.” We
are very interested in Indonesia and how it shifted in the 60s - the modern
Indonesia started at that point. We focused on that era, especially music,
which is really interesting and attractive.“

According
to colleague, APT Curator Russell Storer, this collectivist approach is becoming
more prevalent: “Art has always been a collective or collaborative activity –
it was only really until the modern era that the singular artist genius became
the dominant figure. Many contemporary artists work collaboratively, for many
different reasons – it can broaden the possibilities of what you can do by
bringing different skill sets together; it challenges the emphasis on
individual identity; or it can be a critical response to certain corporate or
market-driven approaches to cultural production. You are also much more
effective politically as a group than as an individual and many
artist-activists work collaboratively or create artist groups.”

"[In Indonesia]artists have
always had to be self-sufficient, in the absence of government support and
institutional infrastructure. It is only very recently that a significant art
market has developed for Indonesian art. Ruangrupa began in 2000, just after
the fall of the Suharto regime, and have worked hard to provide support for a
range of artistic activities – they run a space, organise festivals, publish
journals, curate exhibitions and make their own work. “

“Living
in Jakarta, the largest city in Indonesia, their primary interest is the nature
of urban, and the experiences and histories that feed into that life", adds
Storer . Tromorama is another collective of artsts featured in APT 7 and they began later in 2006 in Bandung, and make stop-motion video
works that address social issues in a very playful way – we show three videos
in the exhibition- and unlike Ruangrupa, Tromarama are from a younger generation who have
seen the rise of a consumer class in Indonesia, who shop at the huge new
mega-malls and wear designer clothes. Bandung is a centre for the Indonesian
garment industry, so they have plenty of material to work with!”

First Published Time Off, Dec 1, 2012

RUSSELL STORER..more

Russell tell me a little about this particular anniversary APT what it is foregrounding in the way of the Asian Pacific
zeitgeist?

APT7 continues the Asia Pacific Triennial’s focus on our region; this
geography has provided the framework for the exhibition series since it
began in 1993. It has therefore been tracing the development of
contemporary art in Asia and the Pacific as it has emerged from a
primarily local concern into an international force – the zeitgeist as
you say – over two decades. This APT encompasses the widest geography to
date, reaching from Turkey and Egypt across to Tonga and Samoa, and
involves many artists who live in the diaspora in Europe and the United
States. So in a way it foregrounds an Asia Pacific that is now firmly at
the centre of things, spanning half the world and reaching deep into
the ‘West’ as well. The works have a palpable confidence, strength and
vitality – such as those by young generations of artists from Indonesia
and Vietnam, which we have focused on, as well as a group of artists
from Central Asia and the Middle East, in a co-curated presentation
called ‘0-Now: Traversing West Asia’.

Are there particular themes being addressed?

The APT is never organised under specific themes or topics, as the
region is so diverse and we don’t like to constrict ourselves too much.
We begin with the artists’ ideas and work outward from there. One of the
major threads in the exhibition is that of temporary structures and
ephemeral materials. This was inspired by the spirit houses and masks
from Papua New Guinea which are these incredibly engineered structures
that are used for a single performance or event and then discarded in
many cases. We made connections to artists such as Shirley Macnamara,
who references traditional Aboriginal shelters in her spinifex
sculptures, and to Richard Maloy, who makes huge installations out of
cardboard.

We also thought that this was a powerful metaphor for the
enormous changes taking place throughout the region, where the
structures of power and daily life are transforming at an incredibly
rapid rate, and nothing is permanent or certain. Many artists address
urbanisation, for example, or the experience of migration and
displacement. The West Asia project uses landscape as a background for
the cultural interactions and shifting borders across that region,
particularly following the fall of the Soviet Union.

What you feel the APT has contributed - and indeed illuminated and/or
awakened- within the Australian collective psyche during the last two
decades?

I think that the APT has been incredibly important for the introduction
of contemporary art from Asia and the Pacific to Australian audiences,
and to engage people with the ideas and histories that inform artists.
The APT was also one of the earliest forums to bring artists, curators
and writers from across the region together, generating and contributing
to cultural debate in crucial ways. It was very important to involve
Australia in these conversations, and the APT has continued to do so,
even though there are now so many biennales, conferences, exhibitions
and museums throughout Asia and the Pacific. The fact that the
Queensland Art Gallery has always collected works from the APT has also
enabled major works to stay in Australia and become familiar to local
audiences, and to be placed in dialogue with Australian art.

In the time the APT has been staged have the internet, telecommunications
and new technology have come to play a more integral role in artmaking than ever before, what are your thoughts about this shift?

New technologies have of course significantly transformed the
possibilities for art making, as well as how artists can communicate
with each other, receive information, and circulate their work in the
world. It is also crucial for curators – it’s hard to appreciate how any
large international exhibition was organised before the internet!
Certainly in the Pacific, which is so dispersed, the internet and new
technologies have become very important. The Pacific Reggae project in
the last APT, for example, demonstrated the importance of music video as
a form to circulate ideas and political expression as carried by reggae
music and lyrics.

Video and new media art has become highly
sophisticated and is a significant form across the region – it’s a
dominant medium in Central Asia, as in the work of Almagul Menlibayeva
in APT7 – as it can be made and circulated relatively cheaply and
quickly. Ruangrupa work actively with video and through their website –
they run the OK Video Festival in Jakarta and have strong connections to
the experimental film and video worlds. Tromarama are very innovative
in the way they use video – they began making music videos for local
bands. Other influential artists in APT7 who work in new media and
communications technologies are Yuan Goang-Ming from Taiwan, Tadasu
Takamine from Japan, and Raqs Media Collective from India, each of whom
are presenting major new projects that use technology to reflect on time
and memory.

Ruangrupa is performing on opening night and are focusing on Indonesian music and the
1970's Queensland Indie Music Scene, tell me a little more about this relationship they are reimagining and are Punk exponents, The Saints and indies,
The Go Betweens referenced in this event?

Ruangrupa’s work for APT7 looks at the 1970s Indonesian music scene as a
way of discussing the politics of the time and to make links to the
same period in Australia. It builds on their many previous works that
attempt to dig beneath the surface of different cities to uncover the
narratives that lie underneath. They were intrigued by the role of punk
music in Brisbane in the 1970s during the Joh era, when bands like the
Saints and the Go-Betweens and radio stations like 4ZZZ were active.

They were looking at it in relation to the situation in Indonesia at the
same time under Suharto, when following the anti-Western period of
Sukarno, the influence of American music was very strong. Yet the music
was more psychedelic and hippie rather than punk as bands were not able
to be openly political. They devised a punk band, The Kuda, who were
very much underground, and through an Australian journalist they met,
had their music played in Brisbane. They have written an album of songs
by The Kuda, which a band made up of Brisbane musicians, named the
Family Butchers, will play during the opening weekend, along with
Brisbane punk and indie music from the time. It should be fantastic.

See:

http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/apt

Top Pic: Mural collaboration with Brisbane artist Fintan Magee as part of THE KUDA: The Untold Story of Indonesian Underground Music in the 70s (detail) 2012, commissioned for APT7

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